COVID: 10 more primary schools in Kuala Terengganu ordered closed

KUALA TERENGGANU: Ten more primary schools in the district have been ordered to close for seven days from today until Jan 30 following findings that individuals who were COVID-19 positive had been to all them.

State Health Department director Dr Nor Azimi Yunus said this was to enable disinfection work to be carried out to curb the spread of the virus.

The 10 schools are Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Kesom, SK Bukit Petiti, SK Pulau Manis, SK Manir, SK Tengku Ampuan Mariam, SK Kedai Buloh, SK Tok Dir, SK Pusat Kuala Ibai, SK Seri Budiman and SK Gong Tok Nasek.

Recently, SK Sultan Sulaiman 1 and SK Paloh here were also ordered closed by the department for the same reason.

“The temporary closure of the schools is done under Section 18(1)(d) of the Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases Act 1988 (Act 342) and, as such, all activities in the school areas must be put off,’’ he said when contacted by Bernama today.

However, no details had been divulged regarding the positive COVID-19 cases who had been to all the schools.

In the meantime, parents of pupils affected by the shutdown have been informed of the postponement of the distributions of textbooks and writing materials by the respective school managements.

A civil servant, Siti Jamilah Hanim Jamil, 35, said her two children, who are students of SK Sultan Sulaiman 1, were supposed to pick up their textbooks today.

“However, their class teachers informed us that the distribution of textbooks has to be postponed to a date to be announced later.

“Nevertheless, the implementation of home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) will proceed as usual,” she said.

-- BERNAMA